Clarity Quote by Glenn Ligon

The paintings by Van Gough and Chagall had a big influence on me.

— John Dyer

My early paintings weren't that good - I was very influenced by Francis Bacon. But there was a kind of intensity there. And however…

— Julian Schnabel

At some point I realized that the text was the painting and that everything else was extraneous. The painting became the act of writing…

— Glenn Ligon

I was a student, and as such you generally rely on prior models of how to make art, but these were not satisfying. Then…

— Gerhard Richter

So many paintings have hidden meanings or need wall texts, but my work is not in that category.

— Caio Fonseca

I was a very hard-edged geometric painter, strongly influenced by [Piet] Mondrian and [Theo] van Doesburg and that sort of thing.

— Warren MacKenzie

“Painters have often taught writers how to see.”

— James Baldwin

“Art, he said, was a controlled madness...He said that books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that…

— Steven Millhauser

I don't think any particular painters have inspired me, except in a general sense. It was more a matter of corroboration. The visual arts,…

— J. G. Ballard

I'm not an Abstraction Expressionist, but I think dedication to paintings comes from an early interest in that work.

— Glenn Ligon

It fascinates me to create beautiful paintings with the simplest means.

— James Rosenquist

Raymond Hendler exhibited a group of abstract paintings that displayed rare high spirits. Using a great deal of fresh white, Hendler devised extremely simple…

— Dore Ashton